Opinion by Greg Hansen : Local once swept floors, now cleans up as owner

"Aw," he says, "nobody would believe it."

In 1985, Brooks won the Eloy Grand Prix. It was an auto race in, ahem, downtown Eloy.

By 1990, he attempted to qualify for the Indy 500 when the Indy 500 was still THE INDY 500. He failed. It was the only race he entered all year. Earnings: $0. Same thing in 1991 as a Formula 3 driver. Earnings: zip.

"I lived like a gypsy," he remembers. "I would race on an old World War II landing strip in Holtville, Calif. I'd work on construction during the week and then get over to Riverside, Calif., or up to Phoenix to race on the weekends."

Brooks' genesis in racing began with him sitting on a bale of hay, mesmerized, watching his father, a flagman, work a stock car race in Phoenix. He spent hours at the old barn of a garage that legendary Tucson/Indy 500 racer Roger McCluskey owned near Tanque Verde Road.

"I'd hang out, sweep the floor and try to get some insight into motor sports," he says now. "My family will attest that the only thing I ever wanted to do was race cars. I could have never imagined doing anything else."

And so he didn't. He drove every conceivable type of race car in America and Europe.

In 1980, Brooks attended a racing school in Virginia. In '85, he won the Western Nationals deep in the heart of Texas. After departing the UA (major: mechanical engineering) and getting married, he went 10 years without earning more than $32,000 in a single racing season.

"It's the story of an underfunded driver," says his wife, Sue, a Tucson real estate agent and former marketing executive. "We've been married for 23 years and there have been many oh-my-god-what-are-we-doing moments."

So you might imagine the scene last week in Atlanta when Brooks and his 14-man racing team — Brooks Associates Racing of Tucson — gathered at the posh Chateau Elan Resort to be honored as a world champion.

It was the payoff for 29 years of chasing the Big One.

Above a cabinet in Brooks' spotless 8,000-square-foot garage near Interstate 10 and Alvernon Way, are a half-dozen (empty) bottles of celebratory champagne. You don't need a trophy when you're spraying champagne over one another.

Brooks, 48, is the grandson of the first principal of Pueblo High School, Elbert Brooks. He is no longer a by-the-seat-of-his-pants driver. He stopped driving in 1999, and this year guided Team Brooks to the 2008 Atlantic Championship, an open-wheel, 11-event international racing series that began in April with the Long Beach Grand Prix and concluded two weeks ago at the Road Atlanta/ American Le Mans.

It is a step below NASCAR and the Indy Racing League, an auto racing equivalent of pro golf's Nationwide Tour.

"The best analogy is that you have to drive in the Atlantic series to get to the next level," Sue Brooks says. "John is one of those overnight successes that took 25 years to get from night to morning."

The Atlantic Championship is a sponsor-heavy organization funded by Cooper Tires and Mazda, and an international collection of drivers and ownership teams that race in such places as Trois-Rivieres in Quebec. Brooks estimates his team won $500,000 this year.

"Icing on the cake," he says.

The Soap Box Derby it is not.

Brooks' team includes two race engineers, a data engineer, six mechanics, two cars, a driver's coach and the 2008 Atlantic Championship driver of the year, Markus Niemela, a Finnish product who was awarded a $250,000 bonus as the year's champion.

Parked in his Brooks' Tucson shop is a tractor-trailer (estimated value: $400,000) that is the hub of Team Brooks operations.

Estimated cost of one year on the Atlantic circuit: $750,000 per car. Brooks sponsors two cars. Each of them roll at about 175 mph.

This is a long way from Brooks' teenage racing days on the modest Tucson raceways. He was named 2005 Owner of the Year, but not until now had his team finished No. 1 in the yearly points standings.

Along the way, he has been sponsored, in part, by Jim Click Ford, and by Rick Barrett, founder and CEO of the former Arizona-based Intergroup Health Systems.

The next Atlantic series race isn't until April, but it doesn't mean Brooks shuts it down for the winter. He will travel this week to a Mazda series race at Laguna Seca, Calif., to scout and possibly recruit another driver for 2009. In January, his team will assemble in Florida for a few months of testing and time trials.

And yet, despite his high profile in American auto racing, Brooks is a virtual unknown in Tucson.

"Most people don't know we're here," he says with a smile. "But that's OK. This is a national championship and it is very, very difficult to win it. We know what it took."